appearance of the Moghuls, and with the opening of the eighteenth century, they began to rise to very considerable power, and, in connection with the Tibetans of Lassa, entered into intrigues and wars that resulted in their own country, together with all Eastern Turkistan and the Ili region, falling into the possession of China.
In Alti-Shahr there could not have been many Moghuls, for with the exception of some few valleys among the southern slopes of the western Tian Shan, the country could, in no way, have been suited to their mode of life. When Sultan Said Khan conquered Kashghar in 1514, perhaps a certain proportion of them may have followed him, but at that date their numbers, even in Moghulistan, must have become much reduced from what they had previously been. Therefore, when a few years later (1525–6), he withdrew the remnant of them from their own country to the hills near Kashghar, in order to rescue them from the hostility of the Kirghiz, they would have formed too small a body to have been accounted part of the population of Alti-Shahr. By that date the Moghul Ulus had become a mere band of refugees; and though afterwards, for a short time, at fitful intervals, their Khans sallied forth from Kashghar and gained some successes over the Kirghiz, the middle of the sixteenth century may be said, approximately, to have seen their practical extinction as a nation.[1]
- ↑ See for some further remarks on this subject Sec. VI. of this Introduction.
